Christmas Stocking

Yes, it has been a really long time since my last post! Because it has been a really long time since I last crafted! While shopping with my mom for her craft supplies, she reminded me that my nieces and nephew always bring out their Christmas stockings each year still, ones that I made for them. It just wouldn’t be right if I didn’t make one for my own Christmas baby!

I ran out of felt so I think I’ll wait til next year to start adding more images on the stocking =) Now if this baby turns out to be a girl, mommy’s going to have to stitch really fast before Christmas!

Materials: felt, thread
Tools: scissors, needle

Custom Door Hangers

Christmas gifts for the siblings-in-law!

I used to hate cutting foam paper because it changed shape as it’s being cut. You also needed very skinny, sharp scissors. Now that I know a pen knife works perfectly, I love it! It’s just like cutting thick soft paper so I can work as I’m used to.

For the multicoloured ones I had multiple print-outs of the same image and cut accordingly for each colour. I love the 3D effect! What’s cool about the foam as well is that I can make imprints for details (see the computer).

Materials: foam paper
Tools: glue gun, sharpies, Xacto knife, scissors

Christmas Cards 2010 I

First batch of Christmas cards this year! Thanks to crafting with Jen, I love exploring the use of thick double-sided tape! Compared to last year’s cards, these I’ve definitely used more of stamps and preset punches than my knife.

Materials: cardstock, confetti, thick adhesive tape,
Tools: tweezers, scissors, Xacto knife, punches, glue, sharpies, stamps

Birthday Card

This was a birthday card for my brother-in-law: a dodgeball and Smash Bros. enthusiast.

This was one of the images resulted from a simple “dodgeball” Google search. I cut the image out of the yellow card and glued the black behind it to “colour” it in. Thick double-sided tape raised the black frames off the yellow.

The 3 black blocks are the pieces of paper that coloured in the image on the front of the card. I didn’t want to just leave it blank so decked it out with features from 3 Brawl characters most played by the birthday boy. Can you name all 3?

Hallowe’en 2010

Exploration in using sculpting tools and depths of pumpkin flesh. Steve time-lapsed the carving process, click here to see the video by stevetan.net!

Boo’s teeth and tongue were sculpted. I like how the tongue turned out, looks like it’s coming out of his mouth. The right side of Boo’s face is supposed to be slightly darker than the right side for shadow effect – can only see it in certain angles though.

Tools: paring knife, sculpting blades

Wedding Thank You Cards

After the festivities, time to show appreciation to all of those who gave generously to celebrate with us newlyweds! Ah, yet another excuse for me to channel my crafty side. But it’s still mass producing so I had to keep it simple.

Loved the fact that letters in “thank you” don’t repeat themselves, so I was able to use my letter stamps. I can’t mass produce with the Xacto knife but I am still fast with the scissors so blade impressions is still evident in these cards!

To keep things simple yet interesting, thick double-sided tape helps!

Thanks to the talents of our friend and photographer Eric Tuason, I printed one picture of us (5 copies to a 4×6 photo) to fixate to the front from the day of the wedding.

I really enjoy origami envelopes. This was one I had wanted to use for the invitations but was too small. Since I made these thank you cards small enough, this envelop was perfect! I printed names and addresses using the computer onto these blue print paper, then folded according to the origami instructions. I still had the labels from the favours for the seal!

Materials: paper, stamp, photo, thick double-sided tape

Customized Vases

I pretty much used any excuse to be crafty for the wedding: invitations, stamps, envelopes, ring pillow, paper cake, paper petals; there’s one more medium to add to this wedding showcase.

I had bought some “rektangel” vases from Ikea to decorate the tables for the wedding. I recently started etching so had all the tools on hand. We don’t keep flowers at our house due to my tendency to kill living plants through neglect. I thought the vases would double up as gifts (for example, I etched a personalized message on one to give to our officiant).

Here’s the time-lapse of one of the vases:

Wedding “Cake”

The back story: Parents wanted a 3-tier wedding cake, but it’s too expensive and Steve and I didn’t want to (a) spend too much money (whoever is paying for it), (b) have to get forks (i.e. spending more money and negating the whole “finger food” theme), and (c) have to set aside time to cut the cake and then not really eat it.

While at Michaels (my ideas bank), I saw that they were selling a kit to make a wedding cake out of triangular favour boxes from Gartner Studios. We didn’t have favours yet so it was perfect: favours, 3-tier cake, and (most exciting of all for me) a big project!

I tweaked the template (which I found off google) a bit and began production. I printed the templates directly onto cardstock, fitting 2 per letter-sized page. I bent at the lines using a metal ruler (faster and more effective than bending with fingers). It took 2 strips of double-sided tape to close the edges. For the top flap I punched 2 holes to string through a ribbon for a bow. My mom helped me sealed the ends of the ribbons with a flame so they wouldn’t unravel.

Rather than writing on each cake box to make it our momento, Steve had a great idea to use labels. As a result of keeping random things over the years in anticipation of a situation exactly like this, I had some old Avery VHS labels lying around. I printed onto the labels and scored the labels to the right size.

After placing them into a layers, I realized I needed to create something so the cake tower wouldn’t come apart easily. Combining ideas from Jen and Celine, I made these securing plates for each layer (add a cylinder the height of the cake box in the centre for support):

These actually made rebuilding the cake extremely easy at the wedding! Final number of cake pieces: 100! (I only wish somebody hadn’t moved the top piece out of its position! It was purposely put on its side!)

(Thanks to Eric Tuason for the photo!)

Materials: Cardstock, ribbon, label stickers
Tools: Metal ruler, double-sided tape, Xacto knife, candle

Rose Petals

I wanted rose petals for decoration and for the flower girls to throw. Again, things are quite expensive when they are wedding related. My mom, who is typically on the same wavelength as me, said she can make those. So my mom used crepe paper and made rose petals by hand, and in the colours I needed! It took a few tries but she finally found the best way to make them.

Material: Crepe paper

Ring Pillow and Flower Baskets

It was another one of those moments. “$30? No thanks, I’ll make it myself.”

I had some left over scraps from the bed sheets set (what is a duvet cover? I don’t have a duvet so it went into the fabrics box) that happened to be the brown I need. Stuffed it with cotton balls and added a ribbon from the colour scheme palette. Saved myself $30 and had some fun.

For the flower girls’ baskets, Auntie Dora lent us a couple of baskets, to which I just tied some ribbon from our colour scheme.

Materials (pillow): fabric scrap, ribbon, needle/thread, cotton balls